Perhaps You’re Used to This or Know Someone Who Is (Part 3)

Behind the stone, the linden tress stood, mostly denuded of leaves. That which remained had turned black and brittle.Comforted him to realize they were dying too. Maybe he could bring the trees back to life. That seemed a more likely task, an easier one. He’d need other materials of course. Learn different incantations. The rest of the ritual would be the same. Death, after all was death.

Two young women visiting their brother’s grave beneath the crooked, narrow shade of the lindens, smiled at Riggley and approached. They asked if he worked there. Frozen as usual at the mouth was he. They hurried away from him. His cue to make an exit but not before snatching up a handful of leaves from the dying trees and vowing to help them. First the trees, he vowed, then Craig Preston.

First time he attempted to revive something dead was when he was 11 and his dog, Sharpie had been hit by a pick-up truck. Found the dog in the street, his body twisted and bloody, no longer breathing eyes still open but empty. He knew the animal was dead. Ran back across the street and into the apartment building where he lived with his mother. She was asleep on the couch. In his room, he got the Book of Faerie Witchcraft his grandmother had given as a going away gift on the day he left for American. He also made sure to gather up his rabbits foot,plastic four leaf clover, the crucifix that hung over his bed and the laminated Jesus bookmark he kept under his pillow.